The method according to the invention for increasing the range of artillery shells charged with an explosive substance and other types of artillery shell which function as carriers of the one or other type of active payload, provides an opportunity for increasing the range of fire of most types of artillery piece by increasing the muzzle velocity and the gliding flight capability of shells fired from them, but without the need to increase the energy content in the propellant charges utilized for firing the projectiles concerned. The novelty proposed in accordance with the invention instead represents a radical modification to the design of the shell utilized in conjunction therewith.
In its more general form, the invention can also be defined as a long-range, subcalibre artillery shell having certain gliding flight characteristics to further increase the range and intended to function as a load carrier for an active payload (for that reason also referred to below as a carrier shell). In a special embodiment, the shell according to the invention can also be guided actively on its trajectory to the target.
Within artillery technology, ever since the first artillery pieces began to appear on the battlefield, the endeavour has in fact been to increase the range of fire of the pieces and to increase their rate of fire and to improve their accuracy.
An attempt has been made in the first instance to achieve increased ranges by increasing the muzzle velocities of the projectiles or shells fired from the pieces with the help of propellant charges having a larger volume or more energy-efficient propellant charges per unit of volume, although in view of the widespread existence of large numbers of slightly older, yet fully serviceable artillery pieces, which would be very expensive to replace, their maximum permissible internal barrel pressure and their maximum charge volumes have often imposed certain restrictions in relation to increasing the ranges of fire simply by an increase in the energy content of the propellant charges. A further possibility of increasing the range of fire primarily of these slightly older artillery pieces has thus been to provide them with new shells or projectiles of improved aerodynamic design. This in turn has resulted in modern artillery shells having been made longer and narrower as a rule than previous types of shell intended for the same artillery pieces.
In the particular instance of tank canons and antitank guns, there has also been a need to impart the highest possible initial velocity to the projectiles fired from them in order to achieve the shortest possible trajectory times to moving targets and the best possible penetration of armour on the target. A previously disclosed method of increasing the muzzle velocity and the projectile velocity of such special armour-piercing projectiles for a long time has been to make the projectiles subcalibre and to fire them with the help of a so-called propulsion mirror. The expression subcalibre is used here to denote that the projectile has a diameter that is smaller than the barrel of the weapon concerned, and the expression propulsion mirror, also referred to as a sabot, is used here to denote the arrangement which encloses the shell or the projectile itself so that the full diameter of the barrel is occupied, which propulsion mirror is discarded once the shell or the projectile has exited from the muzzle of the barrel. This technology was used originally for firing solid metal projectiles of relatively conventional shape, but a change was subsequently made to very slender, finned armour-piercing arrow projectiles that were stabilized, that is to say non-rotating, on their trajectory to the target.